Fiction Scribe

Let the 11th edition of the Bird by Bird discussions commence!

(Isn’t that better? You know you were getting tired of the ‘hello and welcome’ introduction.)

I am thinking about discontinuing this discussion (but in all honest, likely will keep it going simply because I’ll keep reading) due to lack of responses. If you’re reading along or even if you aren’t reading but have an opinion on something I’ve said, please do leave a comment to say hello. (We bloggers are a bit of a fussy lot and get nervous when we don’t know if anyone is reading.)

Last week we had a lovely assignment of “Looking Around” and “The Moral Point of View”. This week we’ll be talking about the interestingly named “Broccoli”, “Radio Station KFKD”, and “Jealousy”. I’ll try to keep things concise and to the point, so if there is anything I miss that you’d like to talk about, you know what to do…

Now to the discussion!

This is by far one of the more strange metaphors Lamott has used in this book, but it amused me nonetheless. (Perhaps because it reminds me of SimCity 2000. People who have played it should know what I mean.) Thankfully she stepped away from the broccoli quite quickly so I stopped grinning and could focus.

“Broccoli” is all about listening to your intuition and telling your rational self to take a big hike when you sit down to write. It’s your rational mind that says, “This isn’t going to work” and gets up to walk away after fifteen minutes sitting looking at the screen. Your intuition holds the hope, crazy as it might be, that if you write a little bit, your characters might have something to say within the page or two of awful junk you’ll write. Your rational mind keeps you going back to edit while your intuition makes you dance like no one is watching.

I like Lamott’s suggestion of making your intuition something apart from you. If you can’t figure it out, let whatever you’ve decided your intuition is take care of it. For Lamott, it’s broccoli. Without having actually thought about it too much before, for me it’s my childhood self. I’ll get more into that in a later post, though.

Bottom line: Listen to the broccoli.

This chapter is a continuation of “Broccoli” in that it can be “perhaps the single greatest obstacle to listening to your broccoli”. As you who aren’t reading or may not have read yet, it’s not an actual radio station; it’s the two sides (ego and self loathing) of you that constantly play in your mind. They don’t get dinner or even coffee breaks. It’s always there.

I immediately knew what she was talking about. And, for me, if KFKD isn’t playing and telling me what a jerk/angel I’ve been lately, it’s only because there is a brief interlude where the hourly to-do list spot is on reminding me of how busy I am.

Does anyone else have that? Ugh.

I am definitely going to try her suggestions to help turn down the volume at the very least. Little JM (my version of broccoli) doesn’t much appreciate loud radios when we’re telling stories, anyway.

I didn’t get into this chapter as much as I have in other chapters because jealousy of other authors hasn’t come into play much in my life at this point. When I’ve read truly bad books, I laughed and used it as fuel to inspire me. However, that’s not to say I wouldn’t get jealous.

If my husband got a huge book deal, that would be more awesome than awesome, but I would be jealous. (If you read this, love, that’s no excuse for you to not write. Growl.) However, if a dear friend of mine got a great book deal, I wouldn’t. I’d love her and congratulate her, and things would be lovely.

I’m not sure where the difference lies, and I could be wrong, but jealousy can be strange sometimes. I’m just glad I haven’t had to deal with it.

And with that, folks, we end part two of Bird by Bird. I hope you’ll join me next week with the discussion on “Index Cards” and “Calling Around”.

books, book discussion, bird by bird, Anne Lamott, ego, writing, writing fiction, intuition, writing advice, broccoli